The New Jersey Institute of Technology has been looking into the future to see how roads and highways will change over the next few years, and found a significant proportion of roadways in a poor state.

Across the United States, says the NJIT, there are more than 4 million miles of public roadways, and 28 percent are listed as being in “poor condition”.

Throughout those roadways, 61,000 bridges are considered “structurally deficient”.

The US Senate has approved Elaine Chao to become the next secretary of transportation.

This means she will be in charge of the department at something of a crossroads in motoring history, with autonomous vehicles accelerating their way onto public roads faster than many had predicted, and with the steady growth of intelligent transport systems.

The Fiat Chrysler Pacifica is set to become the first commercially available car to feature Google driverless car technology when it goes on sale next year

Google driverless car technology set to take to the streets next year

The Google Self-Driving Car Project and Fiat Chrysler have entered into what they are calling a “first-of-its-kind collaboration”, saying that they will integrate Google’s self-driving technology into all new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to expand Google’s existing self-driving test program.

This marks the first time that Google has worked directly with an automaker to integrate its self-driving system, including its sensors and software, into a passenger vehicle.

While many people in the rest of the world are wondering when autonomous cars will be technically proficient enough to be given clearance for operation by the authorities, a Japanese company has already started taking orders on its robotic cars.

ZMP is accepting orders for the automatic operation technology development platform RoboCar MiniVan for public roads package for research and development. The company says the vehicle is equipped with various sensors computers for the public roads.

This product, the automatic operation technology development platform RoboCar MiniVan, is based on commercially available hybrid minivan, integrated laser scanner for sensing the ambient stereo camera, GPS and inertial sensor for measuring the position and behavior of the vehicle, the acquired sensor data. Continue reading ZMP starts taking orders for autonomous car